The People's Prescription

Gambit hits the streets to interview people on Health Care Reform

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushes health care
legislation through Washington, Gambit hit the streets to take
the pulse of people's experience with the issue in New Orleans. We
surveyed 100 New Orleanians at local grocery stores and asked if they
are insured, who provides their insurance or why they are not insured,
how much they pay per month for health care, what they need in a health
care plan, if their needs are being met and whether they support health
care reform.

We were stationed at five different grocery stores
across New Orleans, each reflecting different urban demographics. These
locations were Whole Foods Market on Magazine Street (Uptown),
Save-A-Lot on Franklin Avenue (9th Ward), Langenstein's on Arabella
Street (Uptown), Zara's Market on Prytania Street (Lower Garden
District) and Rouses Market (Mid-City).

Of our sample, 70 percent of respondents are insured; 30
percent are not. Most receive coverage from an employer and generally
need primary care services. Sixty-nine percent of respondents support
health care reform, 14 percent do not and 17 percent are undecided.

The experiences of the New Orleanians with whom we spoke
are featured on the following pages.

Supports reform: "I believe everyone should have the opportunity to
take care of themselves. After all, we are paying so much money for
research in order to maintain and cure our health issues, we cannot be
wasting if we, as Americans, cannot take advantage of the taxes we
pay."

Aaliyah Muhammed, 24

Social work graduate student

Terrytown

Uninsured

Needs coverage for chronic conditions

Supports reform

Michael Ashford, 26

Artist/barback

Lower Garden District

Uninsured

Needs primary care and coverage for specialists, just in case

Supports reform: "I think it is something everyone should get taken
care of."

Amy Rush, 23

Student at Tulane

Insured through parents

Needs primary care coverage, just in case.

Supports reform: "The entire system needs to be reformed. I don't
agree with the bill in full, but something needs to be done. Tort
reform — [I'm] not 100 percent sold on the public option.

care of."

Henry Bostick, 29

Bartender at St. Charles Tavern

Lower Garden District

Insured privately

Pays $100-$250 per month

Needs primary care coverage

Does not support reform: "Too much to explain."

Bush Brighton, 32

Banker at Whitney Bank

Garden District

Insured by employer

Pays $400-$600 per month

Needs primary care coverage, access to specialists

Does not support reform: "Change plan. Competition between states.
No discrimination for pre-existing conditions. Medicare for lower
class/poor. Not in favor of public option unless other reforms have no
results."

Margot Day, 55

Secretary

Gentilly

Insured privately

Pays $400-$600 per month

Needs primary care, access to specialists, treatment for chronic
conditions, mental and reproductive health coverage, catastrophic care,
just in case Supports reform: "Everyone needs to be able to have
care."

Jessie Harris, 45

Zara's employee

Uptown

Insured privately

Pays less than $100 per month

Needs insurance just in case

Supports reform: "Because my wife is handicapped. She's been like
this for 18 years. She's been diabetic since she was 14. I have a
9-year-old son."

Unsure if supports reform: "Not what just passed the House, whatever
is coming up in the Senate; we will see. I need to read the fine print
on what I would support, but I'm not good at writing my
congressman."

"It was hard just to find a good policy that we could
afford that was going to give us the kinds of coverage that we needed
and was going to be affordable. When you are not with an employer, when
you are self-employed, it is just more challenging. Just recognizing
the limitations that those policies have even when we can afford to pay
for our own — I just can't imagine someone who is on a limited
income and is trying to do that. It is really impossible."

Ted Alpauga, 85

Retired engineer

Insured by Medicare

Pays less than $100 a month

Does not support reform: "I think it is a reform of our
Constitution. They are trying to steal our freedoms, everything. And I
am very much against it."

Sabrina Durling-Jones, 37

Filmmaker

Mid-City and Venezuela

Supports reform: "Because I live in a Third World country where I
have access to free (and very good) healthcare."

Howard Russell, 71

Retired physician

Uptown

Insured by Medicare

Pays $200-$450 a month

Supports reform

Barbara West, 81

Uptown

Insured by Medicare

Needs insurance just in case

Does not support reform: "[It's] too expensive for future
generations to have a huge debt."

Supports reform: "Just in general. People in modern Western society
should have access to health care. I'm originally from Denmark, so it's
a bit mystifying to me why it is an issue here. Part of being in a
democratic society is to share the burden and benefits of health care.
As it is, people who have it don't really care about people who don't,
but in the end we are all paying the same bill."

Mirella Cameran, 41

Stay-at-home mother

Uptown

Insured by partner's employer

Needs general practice

Supports reform: "Greater provision for less economically
well-off."

Rouses

Francis Cole

Retired

Mid-City

Insured by former employer and Medicare

Needs insurance just in case

Supports reform

George Sartin, 49

Musician

Uptown

Uninsured (because he can't afford it)

Does not support reform, because he is not sure what it is

John M. Clark, 35

Roofer

Uninsured (because can't afford premiums)

Needs primary care

Supports reform: Need changes in health care

Nicole Jones, 30

Singer

Carrollton

Insured privately

Pays less than $100 per month

Needs primary care

Supports reform: "We just need a change."

Jamie Allen, 27

Barista

Marigny

Insured privately

Pays less than $100 per month

Needs primary care

Supports reform: "Everyone should have health care."

"I am not at the poverty line, but I am not in a
corporate career that has benefits, so I am always going to pay the
most out of pocket. I feel like I will never win, no matter what the
reforms are. I am not married, I don't have kids, I don't have a lot of
responsibility, but I will always pay the most for everyone else. I
don't know what to do about it. I guess I [support health care reform]
but I am not going to benefit. Everyone should have health care."

Joe Hess, 45

Unemployed plumber

Metairie

Uninsured

Needs primary care, access to specialists and mental health
services.

Undecided about reform

"I was seeing double and the doctor told me one of the
reasons I would be seeing double is because I have brain tumors. So I
got them checked. I've got brain tumors. I tried to get medical
assistance. I couldn't work because it would make me f—ed up in
the head. I got one biopsy. One they can't touch. It is messing with my
vision; I seem to be tired all the time. When I am tired, my symptoms
are way worse. This has been going on for years. I can't even do
anything. I am unemployed in plumbing. I am just doing side work."

Darnesha Coleman, 16

Student

Jefferson

Insured by Medicaid

Needs primary care services

Supports reform: "It's helping me when I have a problem and can turn
to my health care provider and not pay too much."

Chris Martin, 46

Waiter at Irene's

Mid-City

Uninsured: "It isn't part of my plan. It's expensive and I haven't
signed up for it."

Needs primary care, just in case

Supports reform: "I think it is a good idea — more affordable
for the population."

Cynthia Parker, 58

Student

4th Ward

Uninsured "Because I can't afford it and I'm unemployed right
now."

Needs primary care

Supports reform: "Because there's so many people unemployed and are
not covered, can't afford insurance due to the recession."

"Before my sister passed [away last March], she didn't
have any insurance other than the six months free insurance they were
offering at University Hospital. ... Not having insurance limited her
visits. She had to go I guess whenever she (could be) fit in, and if it
ran out she had to go through the process all over again for another
six months. She had a heart bypass [after] a massive heart attack, but
she had other little illnesses, like she became a diabetic, she
suffered with her blood pressure, she suffered with having a bad hip.
And since Katrina, doctors not really being here, she had to travel to
Hammond just to get treatment for her hip. I think all of that [took] a
toll on her health. If she ... had other insurance other than the six
months free plan, maybe [treatment] would have been better or more
frequent. Something that I am thinking, could have been prevented, her
death."

Arnold Johnson, 41

Post office worker

Uptown

Insured by employer

Pays less than $100 per month

Needs primary care

Nathan McCullough, 30

Department of Defense mechanic (just returned from Iraq)

Mid-City

Insured by employer

Pays less than $100 per month

Needs primary care

Supports reform

Christine Ignacio, 23

AmeriCorps

Treme

Insured by employer

Needs insurance just in case

Supports reform: "Health care is important/needed."

L. Hallaran, 74

Retired physician at Tulane School of Medicine

Uptown

Insured by Medicaid

Pays $200-$400 per month

Needs specialist care

Augusto Martinez, 64

Unemployed

Treme

Uninsured

Pays $100-$250 per month

Does not support reform: "Too expensive for people."

Reba Orvold, 66

Retired legal secretary

Mid-City

Insured through Medicare

Needs specialist care

Undecided about whether she supports reform

Sav-A-Lot

Arthur Smith, 77

Unemployed

Homeless since Hurricane Katrina, previously lived in the
Marigny

Insured by Medicaid

Supports reform

Eric Blue Jr., 56

Retired mechanic

9th Ward

Insured by Medicaid

Needs primary care

Supports reform: "Because it helps all people."

Richelle Robinson, 29

Stay-at-home mother

Gentilly

Insured by employer

Pays less than $100 per month

Supports reform

Joshua Stone, 54

Musician

Bywater

Uninsured because of cost

Needs primary care

Supports reform: "Change is good."

Alcee Brown, 65

Unemployed

Gentilly

Insured by Medicaid

Pays less than $100 per month

Needs treatment for high blood pressure

Josette Curvey, 32

Home health worker

9th Ward

Uninsured because can't afford premiums

Pays less than $100 per month

Needs primary care coverage, just in case

Supports reform: "If it is possible for me to get insurance and it's
something affordable, I would surely support it."

Willie Slaughter, 57

Groundskeeper

Mid-City

Uninsured because he can't afford premiums

Needs primary care and mental health services and has a chronic
condition

Supports reform: "I feel that if other countries can provide free
health care, this great country should, too."

"My last visit to the optometrist I was told that I am
losing my eyesight. I take six drops of eye drops daily for glaucoma. I
have been having huge cataracts for the last six or seven years, but I
only take drops for glaucoma. I am taking those drops because they
cannot seem to dilate my eyes enough to get the right reading. [If I
had health insurance], they would operate on them. They haven't even
suggested an operation."

David Lanoix, 46

Construction worker

9th Ward

Uninsured due to cost

Needs insurance just in case

Does not support reform: "I don't know that much about it. "

Robert Snyder, 60

Retired

Uptown

Insured by former employer

Pays $100-$250 per month

Needs catastrophic care

Supports reform: "U.S. needs (insurance) for poor people"

Tameka Lewis, 26

No employment information available

No neighborhood available

Insured by Medicaid

Pays less than $100 per month

Needs mental health services

Supports reform

"If you need surgery done and all that, [Medicaid] don't
cover none of that. You just don't get the surgery; if you do get it,
you have to come out of your pocket and pay. Say if you need your
appendix removed, they don't pay for that. If you have a cyst or
something, they'll cover that. But surgery, they won't cover that. And
staying in the hospital, they won't cover that. I had my appendix
removed and they wouldn't cover that. My mom paid $3,500. It was about
to erupt so I had to get the surgery right then and there. "

Reggie Brown, 56

Janitor

Insured by Medicaid

Needs primary care coverage

Supports reform and equal coverage

"More people that need health care should be able to get
it. In between the poverty line and the middle class, I think they are
hit the most hardest. If you are poor, they will give it to you. But if
you have got a little something, they are going to try to take it from
you. So you can't keep your head above the water. If you are paying for
the insurance, you are going back to the poverty line again."

Setonya Nealy, 37

Private-care attendant

Uninsured because can't afford to pay for it

Supports reform

We have to pay for [health care] ourselves. I really
don't get sick, but (when I do) I just go to the emergency room, let
them send me a bill and pay, you know, what I can pay on it. [If I
can't pay, I] send them a letter explaining my situation. [Recently I
went to the emergency room for] an ear infection.

"I have subglottic stenosis. It is the narrowing of my
airway. It is an autoimmune disease that started about a year and a
half ago. I just started going to Loyola for the MBA program, so I had
to forfeit my group health care with the employer I was working with
until May of this year. Now I am under a student insurance plan, which
is $1,000 a year roughly and only covers 80 percent of my bills, so I
have to pay around $3,000 a year out of pocket. If we had socialized
medicine, I would be able to get treated without any costs, just
increased taxes, which I don't mind paying for. I am all for socialized
medicine."

Philip Sevia, 27

Waiter

Garden District

Uninsured because can't afford coverage

Needs insurance, just in case

Supports reform: "Because free or cheaper health care will be a
blast."

Does not support reform: "Them people are crazy. I don't think the
people who are in it — the Congress — even understood it.
It seems you have to go to school for two years just to understand it.
... They're gonna educate everybody, which is great I guess, but
there'll be nobody to work."

Supports reform: "Because of instances like today where my husband
has bronchitis and can't afford to get a chest X-ray. He might be able
to if he had [insurance]."

Alex Matkin, 24

Cook

7th Ward

Uninsured

Needs dental, dermatological coverage

Supports reform: "Everybody needs help now and then."

"I was leaving work on my bike, going to Halloween on
Frenchmen (Street), got tagged by a car and ended up in the middle of
the street, a bunch of people around me. The ambulance came and took me
to University Hospital. They treated me."